July 18, 2024
It's been two weeks since my last tropical weather update when Beryl was still headed for Texas. After its landfall the tropics have been quiet. Low activity is not unusual this time of year as strong easterly winds blow dusty dry air off of the Sahara Desert creating a hostile environment for tropical cyclones across most of the Atlantic Basin. This is expected to continue for the foreseeable future (2-3 weeks, maybe a little longer) but once we get into August those winds calm and conditions improve. There's always a small chance of something popping up closer to the coast somewhere but right now no tropical cyclone activity is expected at least for a few more weeks. There's a small chance we may see a disturbance develop in the eastern Gulf next week from a weak tropical wave but I don't think it'll be anything more than a loosely organized group of storms and showers if even that.
To keep us all honest, I want to remind everyone that a high level of activity is still expected for the remainder of the season. In fact, on July 9th Colorado State University increased their forecast numbers for the remainder of the season. They are now forecasting 25 named storms, 12 hurricanes, and 6 major hurricanes (up from 23/11/5 respectively on June 11th). This includes the 3 named storms we've already had so they're expecting 22 more from here on out. In past hyperactive seasons their numbers have sometimes been conservative, so we may see even more than that. Don't let your guard down.
That's it for today. In the short term we should see some slightly cooler but wetter than normal weather followed by the return of near seasonally normal or slightly above normal temps from the last week of July into August. Rain chances look to stay slightly above normal for a while as well.
Once the development chance looks like it's starting to increase I'll send out another update.
Chris
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